Completionism
by LobstarMonstar
Summary: The Listener is the main character of a videogame. Cicero doesn't know this, but he knows there's SOMETHING special about her. He's not quite genre-savvy enough to pinpoint a completionist when he sees one, but he's loyal enough to help in any way he can. (Lots of meta humor. Slightly one-sided CiceroxFemDovahkiin because, come on. Seriously.)
1. Chapter 1

Astonishingly, begging for his life actually _worked_ for once.

Who would've known that, to avoid the wrath of the Listener, one needed only to ask her not to kill them? This was just further proof of how truly great of a Listener she was. Deadly _and _merciful? Marvelous! No wonder the Night Mother had picked her—she was great even in her darkest hour, and that wasn't even to mention her amazing conquests _outside_ of their little family.

Cicero found out about the Listener's _other_ facets when they went on their first contract together—one of the Night Mother's contracts, not that crispy traitor's—and she literally killed someone with her voice. Her voice! Cicero preferred the tried-and-true method of running people through with pointy bits of metal (call him old fashioned), but _that _had truly been a sight to behold. Oh yes, she wasn't subtle about it either. Of course during contracts she was as stealthy as need be (almost invisible, in fact), but while off the clock she was content to roast the passing bandit to death using nothing but a whisper. And he _loved _that about her.

Then there were the dragons, naturally. He knew enough about Nordic legends to know she had a history with them. Watching how she tore them from the sky with little more than a whisper, there was no doubt! And, get this, she'd suck the flesh right from their bones, and use those bones to make her armor. How intimidating! She'd always make dear Cicero carry the bones, but Cicero didn't mind. Not for his Listener. Besides, he enjoyed watching her work the forge. Where in Tamriel did she _learn_ those tricks? Cicero had seen nothing like it before, and when asked she'd simply say that she'd made many an iron dagger in her day. So talented _and _mysterious!

There really was nothing his Listener couldn't do. Just when he thought he'd seen the extent of her prowess, something even more amazing would happen. One time, he loyally followed her up the side of the highest mountain in Skyrim ("a small detour," she'd called it), and of course fallen behind, because Shadowmere was the Listener's horse, and Cicero would gladly drag up the rear if it meant she could ride, but anyway. By the time he crested the summit, despite his eyelashes having frozen together, he could still make out her form sitting across from a great dragon, just talking to it. Talking! And from the tail end of the conversation he caught (tail, because dragons have tails!), the old thing had told her to go to the College up in Winterhold.

Cicero was livid, so livid, not only because Winterhold was _cold_ (he was no Nord, no-siree!), but also because he trusted mages about as much as he trusted that _traitor_, which was not at all, of course.

Anyway, Cicero was wrong to be worried, and especially wrong to ever doubt his great and powerful Listener for even a second. Imagine his surprise when he found out she _owned _the College! Or… whatever it was that Arch-Mages do. Either way, when they walked in, everyone was just _so_ excited to see her. But not as excited as Cicero, of course, for only he truly knew her true status as an agent of Sithis!

Well… Sithis, as well as other Lords he probably couldn't count using all his fingers and toes. According to her, _this_ mace came from Molag Bal, _that _book came from Hermeus Mora, and she got _this_ staff from a night of drunken capers with Sanguine (and Cicero didn't like the way that Dremora slave looked at her, not at all). But, still, Sithis was the most important—no two ways about it!

Yes. Sithis _must _have been important, if the Listener found time to serve him between the hundreds of other quests she seemed to have going on at any time. She had her fingers in so, _so_ many pies that Cicero was quite sure he couldn't throw a stick without it hitting someone she'd at some point helped, stolen from, or vowed to kill. OR, all of the above. Sometimes, as odd as it sounded, she would help (or burgle) someone right before ending their life, and not even the entirely-sane Cicero could fathom why.

But he'd seen it happen. Perhaps the Listener was driven by a persistent penchant for philanthropy, or an irresistible sense of duty. Whatever the reason, she had to do absolutely everything she was asked. It was impossible for her to say _no_, unless someone explicitly told her to. Which must've been exactly the reason Cicero was still alive today. He'd asked her to spare him, so she _had_ to!

So maybe the Listener was weird. But who was lowly Cicero to talk? He's the one who'd wanted voices in his head for years; she'd just managed to achieve it!

Anyway, these were Cicero's musings during these long, cold treks across Skyrim, dutifully following the ample rear-end of the Listener's horse. He'd had plenty of time to get to know the Listener—had her all to himself, for days upon days at a time! She brought him everywhere. The Redguard—Nazir—had once asked quite rudely why she toted him around like a lovesick puppy (as though Cicero were not even in the room! Hmph). But his Listener, in her endless grace and perfection, had said that it was because Cicero could not die. Who knew that that meant! As far as Cicero knew, he could die as much as anyone else—had come very close to it, in fact, when that evil mutt had taken a chunk from him. But the Listener seemed convinced otherwise.

That raised the question, though, how _could_ Cicero possibly die when traveling with The Great and Powerful Listener, who rubbed shoulders with Daedra and tore the World Eater from the sky with no more than a word? She was just so spectacular, so authoritative, that Cicero was certain her defeat would herald the spontaneous cessation of the known world.

Heehee, even Cicero realized how crazy that sounded.

No matter. Cicero himself would die before he let that happen, which _must_ be what she meant by keeping him around. He just hoped that no one would ever wise up enough to _ask_ the Listener to die, because then they'd surely be in trouble. Then again, Cicero was there to ask her to _not_ die. He always would be! That must be why she kept him around; let him discover her most dangerous secret. So he could protect his Listener!

With the two of them combined, he knew the Dark Brotherhood was in good hands. _That_ was why he was still alive. It gave him purpose, besides carrying around dragon bones. Not that he minded, for she asked him to, and there was no way he could ever refuse to—wait.

Hmm.

Perhaps they were more alike than he'd realized.


	2. Chapter 2

Their adventure will start when the Listener's dragon bones are gone.

The problem being, of course, that she has so, so many of them. And Cicero would know, _should_ know, considering he carried them, all fifteen thousand of them, across Skyrim and back before they came to rest in Whiterun. And now, he carries them the length of the Plains District, slogging up the path from Breezehome to Belethor's with martyr-like resignation.

There's a sudden gust of wind at his right shoulder (he doesn't complain because he can still hear out of the opposite ear) and his Listener, with all the momentum of a mammoth in her full-body armor (not that a mammoth would ever fit into it), breezes past with but a Wuld. "By the gods," a guard says for the seventh time this week, "that's power of the Voice!"

And people call Cicero mad.

He catches up to the Listener in Belethor's doorway, where she deftly relieves him of four bones, twelve loaves of bread, six baskets and a ruby. There's more back at the house, tons more, but Belethor can only afford so much at a time. On their way back, they stop by the apothecary to inquire about Jazbay grapes (for Avrusa Sarethi) and nirnroot (for the Black-Briar lady). Arcadia doesn't have any, but she does have fire salts, which Balimund will be oh-so-happy about. Cicero carries the fire salts so that the Listener doesn't, quote, "accidentally eat them or something."

And he's the madman.

They hightail it back to Breezehome (tails! Dragons have tails!) and the Listener gripes the whole time that the blacksmith, of all people, won't buy dragon bones. Doesn't he know that they're ostensibly the best smithing material in all of Tamriel? Cicero certainly knows, but points out that she's the only one, shall we say, eccentric enough to de-bone a dragon for armor. For anyone else it would be _mad_ to try (he rolls the word mad around on his tongue like a song, or better yet, a punchline). This banter never gets old.

Breezehome is bustling for high noon on Loreidas: two children, a pet fox, a housecarl, the Night Mother's two finest agents, and the stray guard that followed them in. The house is at maximum capacity even before you count the Imperial steedload (because Imperial steeds are the strongest) of dragon bones overtaking the chests, the barrels, the cupboards, even the bedroom drawers. Where the Listener keeps other things, like her clothes, is a mystery—not that that's of any interest to Cicero, no-siree.

It's a sorry sight, the house is. Cicero had done everything short of begging the Listener not to visit Winterhold again, and not just because of the cold (it was cold) and the mages (terrible, awful mages). It was the dragons. Dragons, which seem to congregate at the College in nigh-neverending supply. It's a miracle those mages can get any work or arson done, what with the near-constant attacks keeping them on edge. The Listener says they must have a spawn point nearby, which confuses the daylights out of Cicero because dragons don't _spawn_ like fish, they _hatch_ like chickens!

But the Listener's the expert.

And, furthermore, it's her choice how to spend her free time, as well as how to distribute her growing collection of Fine Fossils, even if that choice is to stockpile them all, sigh, right here. She has many homes across Skyrim. First there's Breezehome here in Whiterun, conveniently central but stiflingly tiny. Then there are those steads in Riften and Markarth, the more interesting (read: crime-ravaged) towns. There's that manor of in Solitude, absolutely filthy in its luxury and probably more suited to hoarding and rearing. She even has a few homesteads she built herself (while Cicero carried the materials because she asked him to so of course he would). This isn't to mention her communal homes, from the tower in Winterhold to the Ragged Flagon to their own Sanctuary. Hell, she even has a claim at Jorvaskrr, from which one can admire the tree and the raving lunatic.

But she stores everything, every, little, thing, right here.

(Is… is insanity catching? Oh dear.)

Back in the present, one of the Listener's whelps—terribly sorry, _darling children_—asks her for some spending money. The Listener too-casually tosses it 1,000 Septims in rather the same manner one would throw a wolf a rabbit haunch. The jester in the back of Cicero's mind, heretofore jovial, falls silent. As the brat skips past, Cicero hisses something like "_innnngrate_," just loudly enough to make himself feel better. The ankle-biter stares but can hardly implicate a whistling man.

The Listener, oblivious, retires, and proceeds to sleep for 48 hours.

Cicero sits and waits, and wonders if dragons hibernate, too.


End file.
